Self identified, undiagnosed and still needing a diagnosis to get support

The sharpest challenge to the idea of diagnosis at Think Autism Melbourne came from the floor. Near the end of the identity and intersectionality panel on 30 May 2026, presented with SSI, an audience member who said the issue was becoming prominent in training organisations argued that one group was marginalised across every intersection the panel had discussed: people who are self identified, people who are undiagnosed, and people who have no idea while others around them can see it. The request was blunt. Stop talking about diagnosis, the audience member said, because it excludes so many people, and asked how many of those present had been completely outside the category until late in life, in the speaker’s own case until 50. “as long as we’re talking diagnosis, we’re really narrowing who we’re going to support, who we’re going to help.”

The audience member said organisations were raising this directly, education providers above all, because schools and universities could see something going on among their students and their own colleagues. The action proposed was to break the dependence on diagnosis down altogether.